Three Promises(2024)

1h 1m
- Documentary

Release Date: May 10, 2024

The story revolves around three critical moments when Suha negotiates her family's safety with God amid the abandonment of dear friends, her son's fleeting childhood, her daughter's mistrust, and directly facing her own mortality.

Note: Distributed by Tikkun Olam Productions

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Director & Top Cast

Yusef Srouji
Director

Other Details

Country of Origin: Occupied Palestinian Territory

Language: Arabic,English

Summaries

Plot Summary

Three Promises is the story of Palestinian mother and her camera, of a son and his suppressed memories, and of an entire country. At the start of the 2000s, while the Israeli army is retaliating against the second intifada in the West Bank, Suha films her daily family life, punctuated by frequent trips underground and overwhelmed by the anguish of her two young children. At every moment of intense danger, she promises God that she will leave if they survive. In 2017, her son, the director of this film, discovers this archive and reconnects with this suppressed past, wondering with his mother what drove her to record a daily life of suffering, a stolen childhood, and why she delayed fleeing, paralyzed by the hope for change and burdened by the impossible choice between physical safety and emotional upheaval. While on the surface there emerges the heartrending portrait of everyday life in times of war, it is the staggering beauty of a mother's love that is revealed between the lines. Blending the voice of the present with impressive family footage, Yousef Srouji completes the story begun by Suha, thus averting the act of forgetting, both personal and collective.Structured around Suha's three promises that she negotiates with God as Palestine's Second Intifada escalates, this film is an intimate portrait of how four family members experience crisis and the roles they play within the family unit. What unfolds might be surprising. The film is peppered with moments of humor, real-time deliberation around how to get to safety, and the heartbreaking witness of a son losing his grasp on childhood.

Storyline

The story revolves around three critical moments when Suha negotiates her family's safety with God amid the abandonment of dear friends, her son's fleeting childhood, her daughter's mistrust, and directly facing her own mortality.